Like an indoor braderie, the Philips auditorium in Drachten is buzzing with activity during the annual ICD Learning Day. Employees of the Innovatiecluster Drachten companies review and discuss the results of their own R&D projects. For a year they have ‘tinkered’ with technical challenges and today they show their findings. To each other, because sometimes the innovations are the envy of competitors.
‘I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work’. The suggestion in this quote by Thomas Edison, that making many mistakes is necessary to innovate, program manager Joost Krebbekx does not share. To innovate is to organize as many coincidences as possible, he tells a small hundred participants of the ICD Learning Day in his introduction to the program. That is exactly what is happening Thursday, Nov. 28, at Philips in Drachten. Techies from 21 high-tech companies from the Northern Netherlands are tasting each other's kidneys. With short pitches about their projects and feedback during the ‘free flow.
paperless
, ’Hey Ben, nice to have you back. Four weeks ago you were last here. There are some changes in the assembly of the hydraulic arm. Some parts have to be assembled differently. I'll show you how to do this.’‘ Ben Scholtanus, operations manager at Neopost, paints a picture of a ’paperless factory. ’’This is what happens when I log on to the production line after my vacation. The system keeps track of what I did last time and thus provides the right feedback to get to work. This way, I never miss a transfer from a colleague again, nor am I surprised by new parts in the bin.'' Together with R&D managers from Variass, Norma, Ventura Systems and Photonis, Ben is working on a solution to the question: how to get the right information about a product to the right people at the right time. This is about much more than work instructions on a screen. It's about connecting all available data about a product, culminating in a complete picture from design process to production process to the use of the final product.
More than instructions
Ben gives an example. ,,With our enveloping machines, customers collect documents, which are folded, placed in an envelope and given an address sticker with a barcode. Sensors in the machine monitor crucial parts for wear and tear and also signal malfunctions and errors. Linked to the Internet, this information comes to us.’’ The challenge, according to Ben, is to get the right information about faults and wear to product designers so they can take it into account for a new version. ’’Then designers need to put the changed design into a new assembly schedule, after which buyers need to know what new parts to order. Finally, changes about new parts or the order of assembly must reach employees on the production line. And all preferably as quickly as possible, to improve the product and keep costs as low as possible.‘’ Ben is convinced that the ‘paperless factory’ not only increases product quality but also decreases time to market. ’’The rate of changes to your products increases and so does the quality of your data. Employees build on experience and no longer look at instructions. In the "paperless factory," employees get an immediate explanation of why and how in addition to instructions. This means you never do the same thing again for 20 years.''
Flexible production
Not only do processes get better and smarter in a smart factory, but machines also undergo a metamorphosis. They are connected to each other and the Internet and read out, for a clear picture of what is really happening in the factory. Processes are optimized, lead times reduced and work done more efficiently. Jan Jacob Mosselaar, system architect at FMI, is working on a ‘multidisciplinary architecture’ to enable flexible production. His challenge? Giving flexible machines human characteristics. ,,For example, responding to sudden events, self-learning ability and assessing situations. Actually, humans are the ultimate flexible machine, so let's take a good look at ourselves.’’
blocks
A robotic arm with a gripper grabs products of different sizes and places them on top of another product. The actions seem randomly chosen, but nothing could be further from the truth. The arm works with precision and accuracy. There is no doubt about the size or placement of the product. Jacob explains. ’’Robots have to know what to grab, which is why we fill it with parameters from outside. That way he becomes flexible.‘’ Still, you can't go on endlessly making a robot flexible. Moreover, not all variables are always known in advance. That's why we work with so-called ’building blocks. ’’You automate these blocks and only then do you make it flexible by alternating between them. The advantage is that you can use blocks from previous machines. Building separate units is also possible, each with its own standard, which are interchangeable and usable in different machines.’' Whether flexibilization can go on indefinitely? ,,No, there is a limit somewhere. Making machines flexible is expensive. Moreover, it is often more practical to have several machines that perform specific tasks. You never need all the functions at the same time anyway.''
Overview of ICD R&D projects.
- Smart Machines 2.0
Predictive maintenance and quality control in remote high-tech systems based on big data/clouds
- Component & Parts inspection by Vision
New combinations of new vision cameras and light to inspect objects automatically
- AI & Machine Learning
The way to achieve information out of multiple databases
- Connected Collaborative Robots 2.0
Robots and cobots for different manufacturing processes, connected to MES
- Paperless factories
The first step to digital twinning on the production floor
- Advanced Additive
New metal 3D printing applications, production-speed printing of engineering plastics, and the 3D printing of electronics
- flexible machines
Defining a multi-disciplinary architecture to enable flexible manufacturing
- Environmentally Protected Electronics
Improving reliability of electronics under harsh conditions.
